The latest on the Karen Read murder case
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Karen Read trial: Defense crash expert from ARCCA faces marathon day of questioning
Damage to Read’s taillight was inconsistent with striking an arm at 24 mph, ARCCA accident reconstructionist Daniel Wolfe testified Friday.
On the stand Friday:
4:05 p.m. update: Prosecutor attempts to discredit defense crash expert’s testing, methodology
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan came out swinging as he began his cross-examination of Daniel Wolfe, hammering the accident reconstructionist’s communications with Karen Read’s lawyers and his use of a crash test dummy during simulated collisions.
The combative exchange was complete with several snarky asides from Brennan, as well as serial objections from the defense.
Early in his questioning, Brennan pressed Wolfe on his compliance with a court order requiring him to turn over his communications with defense attorneys. Wolfe testified the communications, which began in the spring of 2024, largely concerned logistics. He explained he had already deleted his texts with the defense by the time he received the court order, though he checked his phone and contacted his phone carrier in an attempt to recover them.
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“Is there any reason why you deleted all of your text communications with the defense?” Brennan pressed.
Wolfe explained he routinely deletes his messages and saw no reason to keep his communications with Read’s defense after her first trial ended last summer. He also confirmed he communicated with defense attorney Alan Jackson over the encrypted messaging app Signal at Jackson’s request. Wolfe testified he does not have any record of his Signal use and said that was the first and so far only time he’s used Signal with a client.
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In another line of questioning, Brennan suggested Wolfe had colluded with the defense ahead of his testimony in Read’s first trial.
“When you testified at the prior proceeding, did you attempt to portray yourself as totally independent?” Brennan asked.
“Yes,” Wolfe replied.
“The truth is, before you testified, you were communicating with the defense and attempting the best you could to assist their cause, weren’t you?” Brennan charged.
“I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” Wolfe shot back.
Pointing to an outline of questions Wolfe shared with Jackson before his testimony in the first trial, Brennan noted Wolfe had written, “If you don’t want me to say this, that’s fine.” Wolfe said he routinely creates outlines before testifying to offer questions that would best explain his opinions and analysis for the jury.
Later, Brennan asked Wolfe whether he felt he had suffered from confirmation bias in working on Read’s case, a suggestion Wolfe flatly denied. Brennan also asked Wolfe if he has close family members who support one side or the other in the case.
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“Not that I’m aware of, no,” Wolfe answered.
Brennan then asked specifically about Wolfe’s wife.
“My wife? I don’t really know what her thoughts are on the case,” Wolfe said.
Expert grilled about use of crash test dummies, dummy arms
Turning his attention to Wolfe’s earlier testimony that damage to John O’Keefe’s sweatshirt was inconsistent with an impact with Read’s taillight, Brennan grilled Wolfe on ARCCA’s use of an anthropomorphic test device, or crash test dummy, in its simulations. He specifically questioned whether Wolfe had grounds to use the dummy to assess possible causes of clothing tears.
“I will note that the ATD crash dummy is a generally accepted test device to use for not only assessing occupant forces in motor vehicle crashes, but also to assess impact forces,” Wolfe asserted. “So the use of that device is certainly generally accepted.”
Wolfe also said he and ARCCA colleague Andrew Rentschler worked together in their analysis for Read’s case and were in agreement that they could use a clothed dummy arm in their tests.
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In a particularly tense line of questioning, Brennan pressed Wolfe on his choice of dummy arm for testing in Read’s case. Brennan suggested O’Keefe’s arm would have weighed around 11.8 pounds given his build, whereas the dummy arm Wolfe used weighed only 9.38 pounds.
“It was representative enough, yes,” Wolfe testified.
“It was representative enough?” Brennan asked skeptically, questioning why Wolfe opted against using a 12-pound arm.
“It was close enough,” Wolfe answered.
“Close enough? Wouldn’t you want to get an arm most closely related to his actual weight?” Brennan pushed. Answering a subsequent question, Wolfe acknowledged force will be greater if mass is greater.
“My question is, are you telling us that having a lighter arm does not impact the damage in these tests, as opposed to using the heavier arm?” Brennan demanded.
“Certainly not in the field tests, no,” Wolfe replied.
At another point, Brennan asked Wolfe if he was suggesting the difference in weight would have no impact on ARCCA’s calculations.
“The calculations, yes. But in terms of the damage, no,” Wolfe answered. “I don’t think that one pound difference, when we’re talking about something that’s 6,000 pounds striking something that’s — quite frankly whether it’s 9.4 or it’s 11-something, … you’re not going to get a difference in the damage.”
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Later, during his redirect examination, Jackson had Wolfe confirm he was not aware whether anyone had ever actually weighed O’Keefe’s arm.
Brennan further suggested ARCCA’s test results might change if the arm were positioned differently. When a pedestrian is struck, they’re not necessarily held in place by a harness, as the dummy was during ARCCA’s testing, he pointed out.
“That’s not really life; that’s not how a pedestrian is usually when they’re hit, right?” Brennan asked. “They’re not strapped to a harness, are they?”
No, Wolfe acknowledged, though he clarified ARCCA’s test was evaluating the dummy’s arm, not the entire body.
“And when we talk about injuries, part of injuries is not just the impact, it’s the drag in this case from the car, isn’t it?” Brennan pressed.
“It could be, yes,” Wolfe conceded.
“But when you put the dummy on a harness, restricting or restraining its movement, it is not going to replicate hitting somebody and their movement, including the drag, is it?” Brennan asked.
Wolfe said he didn’t know if he would agree.
Finish line in sight?
Brennan pivoted to the “Rescue Randy” dummy ARCCA used in testing a direct hit with an SUV similar to Read’s, noting the debris field from that test was spread out and left some fragments closer to the Lexus. He also highlighted damage to the sweatshirt the dummy was wearing, which Wolfe said was consistent with road rash.
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“Pavement’s hard,” Brennan offered. “How about frozen ground, frozen dirt?”
Wolfe said he supposed frozen ground could be similarly hard, though he said he hasn’t done any testing on that subject. When Jackson later asked him if the damage he observed on the exemplar sweatshirt was consistent with the damage he saw on the right sleeve of O’Keefe’s sweatshirt, Wolfe said it wasn’t.
“No. This is distinctly road rash,” he said of the exemplar sweatshirt. “There’s a clear distinction between the two.”
Fielding a series of questions from Brennan, Wolfe confirmed the accelerator on Read’s SUV was still at 74% throttle at the end of a backing maneuver the vehicle recorded around 12:32 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. Brennan suggested the SUV’s speed was still increasing at the end of the 10-second “Techstream” event, or trigger.
Wolfe testified he did not consider in his analysis a photo of O’Keefe’s missing sneaker, which investigators had found at the snowy curb outside 34 Fairview Road.
On redirect, Jackson had Wolfe confirm ARCCA was not hired by an insurance company for its initial work on the case, clearing up a misconception several jurors reportedly had during Read’s first trial. ARCCA was hired to look into O’Keefe’s death as part of a secretive federal probe into the state’s handling of Read’s case.
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Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed jurors for the day around 3:45 p.m., telling them the trial appears to be nearing its end. Testimony will resume Monday with Wolfe still on the stand.
Speaking to reporters as she left the courthouse, Read said her defense does not plan to call digital forensics expert Richard Green, who testified last year and offered a 2:27 a.m. timestamp for Jennifer McCabe’s disputed “hos long to die in cold” Google search. Green faced challenges from two fellow digital experts who accused him of misinterpreting data, and Read explained the evidence of McCabe’s Google search is already “all out” through prior witnesses.
Asked whether Wolfe’s testimony proves her case, Read replied, “I believe so. No impact.”
12:45 p.m. update: Damage to Karen Read’s taillight inconsistent with striking an arm at 24 mph, crash expert says
ARCCA’s testing indicated the damage to Karen Read’s taillight was inconsistent with striking an arm at 24 mph, accident reconstructionist Daniel Wolfe testified.
Following the morning recess, defense attorney Alan Jackson asked Wolfe about ARCCA’s compensation following Read’s first trial last year, and Wolfe estimated his company was paid “around $20,000” for experts’ time and travel expenses. During a pre-trial hearing, attorneys put the actual figure closer to $24,000.
Wolfe confirmed Read’s defense did not pay ARCCA for its initial testing and report, which were commissioned by federal authorities.
“What about now?” Jackson asked. “Have you been paid any additional sums by the defense specifically for your undertaking that you’re testifying about today?”
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“Yes,” Wolfe said, adding, “I think when I spoke to accounting, I think they indicated it was around $50,000.”
He spoke at length about the tests ARCCA conducted at various speeds using exemplar taillights and dummy arms. In one test at 24 mph — the speed at which prosecutors say Read’s vehicle was traveling when it struck John O’Keefe — ARCCA dressed a test dummy in clothing matching O’Keefe’s and backed into it with a Lexus SUV.
The impact cracked the lens covering the right taillight and spun the dummy in place, though Wolfe noted the dummy was not projected off to the side or rearward. Based on that testing, the damage to Read’s taillight is inconsistent with striking an arm at 24 mph, he opined.
Wolfe also testified he did not observe any fraying, holes, or punctures on the right sleeve of the test dummy’s sweatshirt during the 24 mph test. Later in his questioning, Jackson asked Wolfe for his opinion on whether the damage to O’Keefe’s sweatshirt was consistent with an impact with Read’s taillight.
“It was inconsistent,” Wolfe testified. Earlier, he noted a series of small holes, or punctures, in the right sleeve of O’Keefe’s sweatshirt.
“In any of the testing that you did, did you ever see taillight pieces cut, puncture, or fray the sleeve of that [exemplar] hoodie?” Jackson asked.
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“No,” Wolfe replied.
The damage to Read’s taillight was also inconsistent with striking an arm at 17 mph, 15 mph, or 29 mph, Wolfe said, citing ARCCA’s other tests.
Jackson asked Wolfe for his opinions and conclusions on whether Read’s taillight damage was consistent with an impact to a right arm during a high-speed reversal.
“It was inconsistent,” Wolfe said.
He also opined that the damage to Read’s Lexus was inconsistent with a “center of mass hit.” ARCCA tested a direct impact at 29 mph and found the exemplar SUV’s back window shattered and the vehicle sustained more severe damage to its rear than Read’s had.
Judge Beverly Cannone called a lunch break at about 12:40 p.m. When court is back in session, special prosecutor Hank Brennan will begin his cross-examination of Wolfe.
11:05 a.m. update: Defense crash expert takes the stand for highly anticipated testimony
Engineering consulting firm ARCCA Inc. was tasked with determining whether the damage to Karen Read’s SUV was consistent with the injuries to Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, crash expert Daniel Wolfe testified Friday.
Wolfe, ARCCA’s director of accident reconstruction, told jurors the company received a slew of evidence from Read’s case, including a crime scene report, photos of Read’s SUV, and a report and photos from O’Keefe’s autopsy. Asked if the company’s experts received enough information to conduct a “fulsome” analysis, Wolfe answered in the affirmative.
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He confirmed ARCCA was not hired by Read’s defense, nor by anyone affiliated with the defense team. During Read’s first trial, Wolfe testified — out of the jury’s presence — that ARCCA was retained by the Department of Justice and FBI, which probed the state’s handling of Read’s case. The lawyers are extremely limited in how much they can tell jurors of the federal investigation.
“I don’t recall them giving us any scenarios to evaluate,” Wolfe said of the entity that initially hired ARCCA. “They essentially left it in our hands, ‘Here’s the evidence. What do you think happened?’”
He walked jurors through his credentials and work experience, including his accreditation through the Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction. Wolfe also estimated he’s been involved in accident reconstruction for “well over 1,000” cases, the majority of them involving pedestrians.
Turning his attention to the damage to Read’s SUV, he noted the majority of the outer red lens on the right taillight was broken, as were some of the underlying components in the light.
Responding to a question from defense attorney Alan Jackson about the thickness of the red acrylic lens, Wolfe replied, “I would describe that as a pretty thick piece of plastic. … If you had a segment of it and you tried to bend it, it’s not going to bend.”
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Jackson asked whether it’s common to see some bumper deformation associated with the impact in a vehicle-pedestrian collision.
“That could certainly occur if a pedestrian is in a normal, upright position,” Wolfe explained. “You could certainly get displacement of the bumper.”
“Did you see any displacement or panel deformation on the Lexus?” Jackson asked.
“No,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe confirmed ARCCA considered possible scenarios of O’Keefe’s head, arm, or center of mass striking Read’s taillight. He said experts also entertained the possibility that a drinking glass could have damaged the taillight, as a broken glass was found at the scene where O’Keefe’s body had lain in the snow.
While Wolfe did not conclude a glass was responsible for the taillight damage, he said ARCCA observed damage that was “generally consistent” after conducting tests using a pressurized cannon that could shoot a glass into a taillight at various speeds. Wolfe explained the test simulated someone throwing a glass at the back of a car and produced consistent taillight damage at 37 mph.
He also told jurors he put exemplar taillights into a freezer overnight to adjust for the ambient temperature around the time of the alleged collision on Jan. 29, 2022.
Pivoting to O’Keefe’s head injuries, Jackson asked what sort of testing ARCCA conducted to determine whether the injuries were associated with the damaged taillight. Wolfe said the experts utilized an anthropomorphic test device, more commonly known as a crash test dummy, for a drop test to understand whether a direct impact between the taillight and the back of O’Keefe’s head could have caused O’Keefe’s skull fractures.
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ARCCA concluded the damage to the taillight would have been “significantly more” if O’Keefe’s head and Read’s taillight had made direct impact, and the forces generated would not be strong enough to cause a skull fracture, he explained.
A brief line of questioning about ARCCA’s communications with Read’s defense — a flashpoint in the lead-up to Read’s retrial — was stymied by multiple objections from prosecutors. Jackson then turned his attention to Wolfe’s analysis of the reports and findings of prosecution accident reconstructionist Judson Welcher.
At Jackson’s prompting, Wolfe asserted there were limitations to Welcher’s static testing, which saw Welcher dressed in clothing identical to O’Keefe’s and using grease paint to determine where his arm would make contact with an exemplar SUV comparable to Read’s.
According to Wolfe, Welcher’s static testing only indicates that someone could get their bent arm to align with the taillight and fails to answer questions about potential damage. Welcher also had the SUV back into him at about 2 mph, and Wolfe said the dynamic testing similarly “leaves the door open” to questions about collision forces and damage.
Wolfe told jurors he was not aware of any impact testing Welcher did, nor was he aware of Welcher conducting any testing to determine the forces necessary to damage Read’s taillight or cause O’Keefe’s arm injuries.
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He brought with him an undamaged exemplar taillight, which he held aloft for jurors. Jackson briefly took the exemplar in hand, standing in front of the jury box and knocking a fist to the red plastic lens as he emphasized its thickness. Wolfe testified there is no glass in the taillight, meaning shards of glass found on Read’s rear bumper would not have come from the damaged taillight assembly.
As he got into the brunt of his presentation, Wolfe briefed jurors on some of the fundamental physics at play in accident reconstruction, including Newton’s Laws.
“Don’t be too afraid,” he quickly reassured jurors as Jackson flipped ahead to a slide showing equations for Delta-V — change in velocity — acceleration, and force.
Throughout his questioning, Jackson repeatedly contrasted Wolfe’s testing and methods with Welcher’s, painting ARCCA’s approach as not only more thorough, but better rooted in the scientific method.
Judge Beverly Cannone called the morning recess shortly after 11 a.m., with Wolfe still under direct examination.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
After a day off to regroup and strategize away from the heat, Karen Read and her lawyers are back in court for the 28th day of testimony in her murder retrial.
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal collision in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Prosecutors allege Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at an afterparty in Canton following a night of bar-hopping.
More on Karen Read:
Meanwhile, Read’s lawyers contend O’Keefe was attacked after joining the afterparty at 34 Fairview Road. They claim Read was framed in a coverup intended to protect the family and friends of the homeowner, a fellow Boston officer.
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On the stand Wednesday was Canton snowplow driver Brian Loughran, who testified he saw nothing on the home’s front lawn when he initially drove by around 2:45 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. While prosecutors claim O’Keefe was already laid out in the snow by then, Loughran was adamant he saw nothing on the ground outside the home when he first passed by.
“Did you see a 6-foot-1, 216-pound man lying on that lawn?” defense attorney David Yannetti asked.
“No,” Loughran replied. He also told jurors his view was clear and his snowplow was equipped with lights that shone “extremely bright, almost as if I had a spotlight.”
During another pass through the neighborhood around 3:30 a.m., Loughran testified he saw a Ford Edge parked on the street outside 34 Fairview Road and found its presence unusual.
“And sir, how clear is your memory about what you saw or didn’t see in the early morning hours of Jan. 29 of 2022 in the area of 34 Fairview?” Yannetti pressed.
“Very strong,” Loughran answered.
On cross-examination, special prosecutor Hank Brennan repeatedly challenged Loughran on his recollection, alleging his memory has changed “as far as times and what you saw.” Loughran disputed those claims, even as he acknowledged one inconsistency between his testimony Wednesday and during Read’s first trial.
In another notable line of questioning, Brennan alleged an unnamed “online blogger” had threatened Loughran into offering testimony favorable to Read’s defense. Though Brennan did not name the blogger, his description of the individual’s work and fan base were a match for Turtleboy blogger Aidan Kearney. A staunch defender of Read’s innocence, Kearney has blogged prolifically about the trial and was even charged with intimidating witnesses in the case.
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“You were well aware the person had a very strong and large social media presence,” Brennan suggested, and Loughran confirmed he follows the blogger’s work.
“And in following that blogger, you know full well the power that person has to get attention from the community to harass, correct?” Brennan pushed.
“Yes,” Loughran confirmed. However, he denied enjoying the attention he’s received as a result of his involvement in the case, describing the publicity as “aggravating.”
“I did not want it,” Loughran told jurors. “I don’t think I deserved it. All I was doing was my job and telling the truth.”
Kearney also disputed Brennan’s claims as “completely baseless,” telling reporters outside the courthouse, “I think the bigger question is, why did a ‘blogger’ — as Hank Brennan calls me — speak with the plow driver before [former Massachusetts State Police Trooper] Michael Proctor did?”
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